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Technology Stocks : 3Com Corporation (COMS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jach who wrote (23193)	10/24/1998 2:31:00 PM
From: jim bender	Respond to of 45548

Saturday October 24, 1:22 am Eastern Time Apple tried to buy Palm Pilot from 3COM-report SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc.'s interim chief executive Steve Jobs tried to buy the PalmPilot handheld computer from 3COM Corp., but the deal did not come to pass, Jobs said in a recent interview with Fortune magazine. ''I thought buying the PalmPilot from 3Com would have been complementary, but it didn't come to pass,'' Jobs said in an interview in the November 9 issue, where he also told Fortune that Apple's future is in the consumer market. Fortune reported that Jobs tried to buy the Palm Pilot sometime last year, but 3COM chief executive Eric Benhamou was not willing to sell. No further details were mentioned. Officials at Apple in Cupertino, Calif. and at 3COM in Santa Clara, Calif. did not immediately return calls. Earlier this year, Jobs shut down Apple's Newton business, as part of his many restructuring and refocusing moves after he was named interim CEO of Apple last September. The Newton, a project backed in the early 1990s by then-CEO John Sculley, was one of the original handheld computers, a product that was seen as almost ahead of its time. Sculley coined the term ''personal digital assistant'' (PDA), which eventually spawned a whole category of PDA devices. It was initially criticized for its poor handwriting recognition. The PalmPilot, however, has become the most widely used PDA and its handwriting recognition software, called graffiti, is easier to learn and is more accurate than the Newton's. Jobs also said the hot-selling, snazzy iMac consumer computer is a good example of Apple's future direction. ''The whole strategy for Apple now is, if you will, to be the Sony of the computer business,'' Jobs said. When asked by Fortune about his ongoing status as ''interim'' CEO, Jobs he has not thought about the issue for many months. ''People were hounding me on this, and I woke up one morning and looked in the mirror and said, 'Steve, this is not your problem.' I didn't know then and I don't know now. But for the past six or seven months, I haven't thought about it. I'm going to be here until certain things get done,'' Jobs told Fortune.